Stocktrade adds some 46,000 customers and £4.6bn of assets to ATS via three channels; direct and intermediary customers, and strategic partnerships.

The deal is valued at £14m and is expected to accelerate ATS’ move towards a break even point by 2016. Overall assets of ATS will go from £7.2bn to over £11.5bn, with total customer numbers over 105,000, the company said. The deal will be funded by ATS and its parent, Alliance Trust Plc, which will inject up to £8m in cash via equity. Completion is expected by the end of the third quarter of 2015.

The strategic partnerships involve businesses such as pension providers, building societies, company share schemes and corporate individual savings accounts (ISAs).

Katherine Garrett-Cox, chief executive, Alliance Trust said: “Alliance Trust’s strategy is built on creating long-term and valuable relationships with our shareholders and customers. As set out in our vision 2020, our objective is to become the UK’s most trusted investment and savings business. Over the last couple of months we have received a lot of valuable feedback from our shareholders. We are currently analysing that feedback and we will update shareholders further at our interim results in July.”

“Our strategy for ATS is to grow the business organically, but when appropriate acquisition opportunities present themselves that fit with our stringent criteria then these will be assessed. The acquisition by ATS of Stocktrade is an example of us putting this strategy into action and pursuing our ambitious growth targets.”

Editorial Director of Open Door Media Publishing Ltd, and Editor of InvestmentEurope.
Jonathan has over two decades of media experience in Japan, Australia, Canada and the UK. Over the past 16 years he has been based in London writing about funds and investments . From editing the newsletter of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Japan in the 1990s he now focuses on Nordic markets for InvestmentEurope.